


i know the feeling this time i swear that i do

by postalcoast



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: M/M, Spoilers, bit sad tbh, if you haven't finished the game yet, love fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:35:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27039577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/postalcoast/pseuds/postalcoast
Summary: John tells him he loves him like it's the only three words that could ever be made for someone like him. He has a way, a way in which Arthur hasn't figured out yet, that makes the words feel like that, too.
Relationships: Abigail Roberts/John Marston (mentioned), John Marston/Arthur Morgan
Comments: 6
Kudos: 27





	i know the feeling this time i swear that i do

**Author's Note:**

> title is taken from never be mine by angel olsen which i like to listen to sometimes & think about john & arthur & cry :)

John told him he loved him in that worn-down little shack back in Colter. 

Late at night, when the temperatures dropped even colder, and Arthur could see his breath when he spoke.

He could see John’s breath, too, dissipate into the air around them - the declaration disappearing as if it’d never been said.

But, it had. There was no denying that.

Arthur had taken one the thin blankets that laid over John and held it in front of the fire, trying to absorb some of its heat into the fabric before placing it back over John's shivering frame. It wasn’t much, but it’d help for now.

John’s fever had finally broken hours ago, after Abigail and Arthur both took turns holding snow-dipped cloths to John’s forehead. 

Of course John was gonna make it out of this, Arthur had no doubts about that. But it didn’t make it any less taxing, on Abigail, on Jack, or himself to see John like this. 

Arthur sat back down in the rickety wooden chair at John’s bedside, and John said he loved him, half-mumbled yet clear as day. 

At the time, Arthur half-wished he was lying. 

At the time, Arthur thought the words might’ve been spurred on, like John thought they might’ve been some of his last.

John says it again at Horseshoe Overlook, while the two of them are sitting at one of the large, round wooden tables and nearly everyone else has gone off to bed. 

He tells Arthur he loves him over a couple of beers like they’re old friends, yet when Arthur thinks about it - the term is probably an understatement to describe the two of them. 

Perhaps they’re soulmates or star-crossed lovers like characters in some tragedy tale, caught up in a world that’s destined to keep them apart.

Arthur’s still a little sore from John’s year-long disappearance, and even here, asking him why - the thought still hurts.

John had one too many and one too little reasons for running off: his own fears, his own childishness, his own selfishness. 

Arthur asks him what he feared and John said that it wouldn’t matter if he ever came back at all. If it wouldn’t matter to Abigail, or Dutch, or Hosea, or _him_. 

John tells Arthur he loves him like something of an apology, Arthur’s hand laid over his on top of the table like something of a promise. 

Arthur says he loves him too and it is a promise.

John says it again in a room at the saloon in Rhodes, in a bed that’s nearly too small for the likes of them both. The words mumbled against Arthur’s skin, then again, against Arthur’s lips. 

John says it like it’s the only words he knows, yet at the same time, he says it like it’s something of a sacred statement with some divine meaning, only reserved for him and Abigail. 

There’s something so heart-breakingly honest about the way John says it, too. Arthur’s never heard it said to him like that ever in his life before, not like John says it. 

John tells him he loves him, presses the words against Arthur’s shoulder like a kiss, and Arthur says he loves him too, because God help him, he does. More than anything in the world, perhaps. 

Walls built up because of the past, because of the family he could never have, because of Mary and her family that he didn’t belong with. The same walls broken down within days, within nights by John and his own little family - a family that Arthur could easily see himself being part of. 

It’s just like John to come barreling in and destroy what barriers Arthur had spent so long accumulating - but perhaps, for the better. And the way John smiles at Arthur when he says he loves him back leaves Arthur knowing it is. 

At Clemens Point, after Arthur escapes from Lone Mule Stead and is still recovering from the wounds he obtained, John tells him again. Not spoken words, but more in the same way Arthur said it all those months ago back at Colter without even realizing it.

Arthur finds it ironic, at first, him laid up on his cot while John sits at his bedside much like Arthur had done with him. It wouldn’t be the first time the two of them did this for each other, perhaps it wouldn’t be the last. 

Arthur glances over at the wooden chair which John has pretty much occupied since Arthur returned to camp, and John’s asleep. Sunken down in the chair with his long legs stretched out in front of him. And he isn’t in too deep of a sleep to be roused by Arthur saying his name, but he startles a bit, straightening up in his chair like Arthur’s just caught him doing something bad. 

“Go on, I’ll be fine,” Arthur tells him, and his voice is still raspy and sandpaper dry. He almost hates the sound of it. “Get some rest.”

At this John chuckles, not quite the breathy laugh that Arthur has found as one of his own sources of happiness but it’s still a pretty sound.

“Don’t worry about me,” John says, but it’s still hard for Arthur not to. “You’re the one that needs the rest, Arthur.”

Up on the balcony at Shady Bell is one of the times when Arthur says it first. 

Words never were his speciality, especially when it came to expressing how he felt. Especially a feeling as complicated yet simple as the way he felt for John. 

At times, Arthur feels that one word doesn’t do it justice, but it’s the only word he’s got so he uses it. 

It’s a couple of hours after he returns from the party at the Mayor’s house, so he’s still wearing the suit Dutch picked out for him. The one Dutch made him go to the tailor’s in Saint Denis and get custom fit for him so he looked the part. He’s still got pomade in his hair and John says he tastes like cigar smoke.

There’s not enough words in all the languages combined to tell John how he feels about him, there’s not enough time in the world, for either of their lifetimes, either. So Arthur tells him he loves him, and John says it back just as he has before. Without hesitation, catching the words and tossing them back out at Arthur in one simple, fluid motion. 

It feels like the world around them is a ticking time bomb, what with them being chased from camp to camp and the Pinkertons catching up to them. Bronte is only another beast that Dutch will undoubtedly conquer, or perhaps one that will cause them to lose a few more good people and send them running to their next location.

But, for one moment, atleast, with John, Arthur can pretend that everything in the world is perfect.

After Sisika, and after Guarma, Arthur hasn’t told John yet but he tells him he loves him. He doesn’t know how to tell John all the things he needs to tell him, but he tells him he loves him, and he tells him that’s one thing he knows for certain out of all the things Arthur thought he knew.

He doesn’t know Dutch, doesn’t know the distant coldness in his eyes when he looks at him, but knows the sinking feeling in his chest that John tells him he has when he knows that Dutch wasn’t coming for him after all. He doesn’t know their place in the world anymore, he doesn’t know the reasoning behind anything Dutch says or does anymore. 

He does know this isn’t a place for John and his family any more. And when he tells John he loves him, the words only seem to remind Arthur of the time they have left, and how he wishes it was so much more. 

He, himself, isn’t long behind. 

And he hasn’t told John yet but when John says it back, the way he says it and the look in his eyes, it isn’t hard to tell perhaps John’s already figured it out for himself. 

John’s smarter than what Arthur’s given him credit for in the past, this he knows now, and he loves John, till his last breath, he’ll love John. 

And if that last breath is spent telling John what he’s told him dozens of times over, then so be it. 

John tells him he loves him for the last time up on that mountain, with Arthur’s hat on his head and gunfire going off in the distance like the fireworks at the Mayor’s party. 

And Arthur says it back, he could say it a million times over. In a perfect world, he could. 

Arthur thinks in that moment at what he’d give to at least get to kiss John goodbye, and how saying it simply isn’t enough, it never could be.

But what he gives is for John to make it off this mountain alive, to live out a few more years at least happy, with his family. With those that love him too.

And that, hopefully, is enough.

As long as John makes it - then it can be.


End file.
